Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 32, suffered a major right knee injury playing tennis at Wimbledon Thursday in the third set of her second-round match with Sorana Cirstea. Se fell to the grass. She cried, down on the turf: ‘Sorana, help me! Sorana help me! Sorana, help me!’

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, such an injury,” Cirstea said. “So then I think I was a little bit shocked, as well.” Mattek-Sands’s husband, Justin Sands, Cirstea and Cirstea’s trainer gathered around first. It took some time for medical help to arrive, Sorana said, but the organizers estimated it was only one minute. The injured was wheeled off the court on a stretcher 20 minutes later. “The first response to Court 17 was within 1 minute, by a qualified ambulance technician.

Medical help for Bethanie Mattek-Sands

The player was kept on court while pain relief was given. The player was then transferred directly into an ambulance and taken under emergency conditions to a hospital,” the tournament said in a statement. They related that Mattek-Sands had “an acute knee injury.” Ranked 103rd in singles, Mattek-Sands is No. 1 in doubles. She won a gold medal in mixed doubles at the Rio Olympics with Jack Sock, and has won the last three Grand Slam events with Safarova. Playing surfaces around the All England Club were a source of complaints by others Thursday.